Born and raised in Iowa, just eight miles from Oelwine and four miles from Maynard. John was known and referred to by his immediate family by his middle name, Raymond. During  his Pennsylvania years, he used the name John.

 Raymond and his Sister, Mildred, worked with their father in the farm fields. They both enjoyed working the horses, but perhaps not the other field work. During this time, John contracted Polio but was 'cured' with techniques developed by Sister Kenny and administered by his Grandmother Elizabeth Kellihen Seal, who lived with them. John recalled that Grandmother 'sure had cold hands.'

 When John was about twelve years old, the family left Iowa and returned to their father's home, Emmitsburg, Md. John recalled that his father rented an 'Emigrant Car' to transport the household effects and horse. John and his father rode in the boxcar to take care of the livestock. When the train got to Byron, the conductor had instructed them that John was too young to ride the car and would have to get off. John got off and went to stay with his Uncle George, residing in Byron. When the passenger train came through a few days later with their Mother, and the other children, John traveled back to Md. with them.

John left Emmitsburg, Md. when he was 19 to enlist in the Coast Guard. He was medically discharged a year later due to the loss of his right eye. For the next few years he worked summers doing stone quarry work and winters in the Merchant Marine, Ward Line from NYC to Mexico and Veracruz.

After his marriage to Wava, they lived in Fayette Co. Pa. around the Dunbar area most of their lives. John continued to work in stone quarries and primarily at the Sand Mill in Dunbar. If the final years of the Sand Mill, John and his friend Jim Bryner managed the Sand Mill.

He enjoyed Hunting and Camping and for a large part of his middle years, John worked with Boy Scouts and was an Explorer Leader. In 1962 they went to Byron, Ill. John and Wava helped his father, John Emory Mort in his last years and then Anna Welty, until she died in 1969. John and Wava decided to remain in Byron, but in 1980, John and his son John Jr. built a Solar Home in Pleasant Valley, NY. John and Wava lived there until they both died in 1989.